A young woman went without food while helping her family pay for her father’s Parkinson’s disease medication, New York City’s health commissioner told the crowd assembled at Newsweek’s AI Health Summit. Alister Martin said the case showed how financial pressures can become health problems. The city’s health department is now exploring whether artificial intelligence could make it easier for people to apply for benefits such as food assistance.
Martin recalled treating the woman, who was in her early 20s, after she arrived at an emergency department with abdominal pain. Does she have kidney stones? Does she have cholecystitis?” he said.
The tests instead indicated starvation ketosis, which can occur when the body does not get enough food. When he spoke to her privately, Martin said the woman told him that her elderly father had recently been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease and the family was struggling with the additional cost of his medication. Martin said the choice she had left unspoken was a stark one: help pay for her father’s medication or buy food for herself.
Martin said the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene is now exploring whether AI could make it easier for people to navigate assistance programs such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP. He stressed that the work is at an early stage. The paperwork burden can have real consequences.
A 2025 Urban Institute analysis found that one in eight working-age adults in families receiving SNAP had their benefits stopped or interrupted because they were unable to complete the recertification process on time.
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